Talk:TIE/sk Striker/@comment-38197834-20190313212803/@comment-454133-20190313222143
I see Strikers on occasion, and with the ship entering Hyperspace-legal soon I expect to see 'em even more often. The fact that a Striker can carry bombs/mines is an interesting wrinkle. That makes it kinda mean. A Planetary Sentinel with Proximity Mines is 40 points, only a 5th of your list. Around the same price as a TIE/sa bomber for that purpose, but sporting 3 attack dice and high mobility instead of bombing with banks. "Duchess" is the most popular of the bunch, being able to choose whether to use the Ailerons, be she stressed or not. It makes her very versatile, and she has a high initiative to put that to good use. The way her ailerons have her move gives her a lot of positioning power. You might want to give her Fifth Brother, as the force point helps her survivability and/or attack power. Countdown and Pure Sabacc were popular in first edition, especially Sabacc, but I've seen them less in 2E (it's usually Duchess, or the cheap generics). Countdown can take a devastating shot of hits/crits and just decide to nullify it all by taking a damage + stress; I feel he may have gotten stronger in 2E thanks to far fewer sources of stress (no Tactician or R3-A2 etc). He can shake off a full Proton Torpedo attack that way, so he can often count on being left alone by non-swarms. He is less useful against swarms since they know they can overwhelm his ability, but solid against heavy hitters, so if he can go alone against a foe he can really drag out the fight while dealing good damage with his own weapon. He likes Shield or Hull Upgrade because that adds to the number of rounds he can pull that trick. If foes do gang up, quite often the worst attack will come from the higher-PS ace and that's when he'd most likely accept the stress. Sabacc was the really popular one in 1E along with Duchess. That four dice is terrifying, and often he'll be targeted first because of that. That's fantastic, and it means you can often play the game of tortured targeting priority on your opponent. If you can raise the chances of other ships not being targeted, Sabacc serves a strong purpose as a cheap decoy that hits decently hard until killed; if Sabacc is ignored, he'll rip a hole through the enemy with 4 or 5 dice. Frequently a win-win. Sabacc does well with a shield upgrade too, but doesn't necessarily need the investment. I think the only reason I don't see him is being overshadowed by Duchess, and by other ships that can fire munitions (e.g. proton torpedoes). I suspect their costs have remained about the same since 1E, though they did lose access to Lightweight Frame, which hurts a bit. But the meta is now far more gentle than 1E, so that's great for them! Not sure how well-priced they are for that meta. They seem to be struggling a bit, but I think as people use them in Hyperspace and get used to them, that'll change. And there may be a points reduction in the works for them, if FFG wants to encourage their use and worries they're not priced right.